Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:23 pm on 4 March 2020.
Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you to everyone who has contributed to this valuable debate and raised very valid and important issues, and particularly the referrals to some of the appalling examples that I fear we're becoming far too used to.
I'll just add one further element to this debate too, in concluding, because last year I asked Betsi Cadwaladr how many mental health patients were being sent to hospitals in England and, of course, there are dozens who leave north Wales for homes and mental health units across England. In many of these, the care provided is appropriate, although it is further from home than any one of us would want to see. But according to the Care Quality Commission, which assesses care standards in England, many of the units where patients from north Wales were sent were either inadequate or requiring improvement. Betsi Cadwaladr health board spends millions of pounds on mental health services and much of that goes to these institutions in England. I have a very grave concern about the level of care provided in these few institutions. It does pose a question as to what oversight there is of those most vulnerable patients if they are many hundreds of miles away from their families, and indeed hundreds of miles away from the health board that places them at those locations.